International Father’s Day to be celebrated today

That time of the year when the other half of the family tree is celebrated.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL FATHER’S DAY!

For this day, Gulf Today has been given the opportunity to share two open letters alongside the wisdom of a father.

From Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Jakarta in Indonesia, Yanti Dimayanti, a dentist-turned-Delarose Haute Couture Abaya owner, writes to Mohamad Yoenoes Shahil: “Happy Father’s Day Papa, 89 years young. Like a lighthouse through every storm, your love has guided our family with unwavering strength, wisdom and grace. When illness brought you to the ICU, I rushed home, and our hearts followed you there in prayer.

“Alhamdullilah, Allah answered our prayers and granted you recovery.

Yanti Dimayanti and her family.

“Papa, you are one of Allah’s greatest blessings in our lives. May Allah SWT continue to bless you with peace, good health, strength, and endless happiness.

“With all our love and gratitude, wishing that you personally read this one even as I have been away in the past 13 years; I love you Papa.”

Records reveal that the international celebration of Father’s Day every third Sunday of June – which falls on the 21st this year – has been inspired by that one simple act of Sonora Smart-Dodd, brave enough to propose in 1909 to the Central Methodist Episcopal Church (present-day Central Methodist Episcopal Church) located in Spokane, Washington and later on, petitioned to the Spokane Ministerial Alliance, to also set a special date for fathers, like what mothers had been blessed with early on.

For Dodd, orphaned at age 16 when her mother, Ellen Victoria Cheek Smart, died out of childbirth in 1898, fathers like her American Civil War veteran widowed father, William Jackson Smart, also ought to be honoured like mothers because fathers do play an important role in shaping and building up their children.

She saw it through her father who raised all his six children all by himself.

Consul General Denny Lesmana and his family.

Over in Sharjah, 19-year resident Joel Anthony F. Pontanares writes: “To my boys, John Elijah and David Josiah. I am always grateful to God for your lives. Watching you both grow brings me much great joy. Walk with honour, stay true to your faith in Christ, and to Him be all the glory.”

Indonesian Consul General in Dubai and the Northern Emirates Denny Lesmana says: “A father will do anything for his family’s happiness. Fathers and mothers are always parents to their children, no matter how old they get.”

“No father can bear to see his family hurting. So let us choose love for one another, so we can all live in peace and happiness – and so every father’s heart can be at peace too.”

Thank you for all the fathers in the world wherever you are – as each country too has its own designated Father’s Day.

Incidentally, in the UAE and in across the 22-country Arab World, Father’s Day is permanently observed every June 21.

June 21, being the World’s Longest Day with the sun almost 13 hours up there in the sky symbolising strength, vigour, life, and the critical role of fathers in society-building – from their respective families.

In Spain, Portugal, Italy, Honduras and Bolivia, “todos los padres” – translated as “all the fathers” – receive that much more special treat every March 19.

It is in accordance to the Roman Catholic belief and tradition that the date is the natal day of St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus Christ, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the Kingdom of Thailand, it is every December 5, the birth anniversary of His Majesty, the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the ninth monarch from the ruling Chakri Dynasty since 1782, the “Father of the Nation.”

He dutifully worked for the development and progress of the country since 1946, his ascent to the throne; making Thailand the second largest Southeast Asian economy, after Indonesia.